domingo, 6 de janeiro de 2013

Cognitive Neuroscience as a tool for marketing. It’s benefits and when this is not enough.

I have always been a science freak. Not ‘doctor Nuts’, but
a huge enthusiast of any new path of human evolution enlightened and ‘designed’
with the help of applied sciences. My scientific profile of degrees is totally
un-linear. From Cultural anthropology to biological anthropology, then
communication sciences and semiotics and after this marketing theory,
transiting through cognitive sciences and paving the way to consumer and
business anthropology building my social and behavioral sciences applied to
business goal.

In my doctorate thesis I used cognitive neuroscience theory
and biological anthropology to understand the human obsession for body pattern
that builds fashion markets. The understanding of brain patterns formatted from
thousand years by the intersection between nature and culture fascinated me and
helped me to understand the preference for skinny unhealthy bodies when the
primitive male desire was think as for the ‘fat hips’ representing maternity
and female health[i].

Then, in 2006, I discovered the group Cognitio, a think
tank of cognitive sciences studies
based on University of São Paulo, (where I did my PhD and teach nowadays). It
was a multidisciplinary field of study constituted by neurology, linguistics,
neuroscience, physics, philosophy among others areas and developed a brilliant
work understanding the brain constitution that generates cognition. A book was released
about their research, called “O sitio da mente”, (the mind site), and I used it
as a support on my academic and business researches.

The cognitive neuroscience, which is having so much hype
about it, is a part of the hole cognitive science where stimulus and emotions
can be reading by the use of technological instruments, letting neurologists
understand what creates god, bad and other categories of ‘feelings’, sensations
that are now being used by the marketing to measure the acceptance of products
and reactions to them.

I’m an enthusiast of this new possibility, as I have being
using cognitive sciences in my researches for almost 10 years, beginning with
the theoretical approach and then discovering empiric uses. But the point is
that, like any the possibility coming from science, just as ethnography was
years ago, is being less understood than it should be and overestimated viewed
as a magic that solves all consumers understanding for business. Of course, for
decades we all have been thrilled about the possibility of ‘reading’ the
consumers mind, and now it seems that we are able to do it. Really? Let’s take
a closer look about it.

When the mind scans gives us the human emotions generated
from products and brand stimulus, it gives us reactions to elements perceived
by the consumer. As I said in the last post, it gives us ‘what’, and not the
‘why’ markets needs in order to establish strategies based on knowledge about
the elements researched - emotions, drivers of engagements, choice behavior -
necessary to understand how can they design these elements strategically for
their brands and products. Ok, an image of a physically disabled kid completing
a marathon generates emotions of compassion, overcome, and greatness. For
everyone, really? The use of physically disabled kids on a commercial yes, can
generate emotions in all of us, but depending on which are the values of the
sample, this compassion feelings can generates rejection, like a bad image
about the brand - viewed as using a kid disability for gaining money - or even the
feeling of an admired brand linking with something that ‘puts her down’ among
reactionary sports lovers that believes that there are physically privileged
people who are ‘better’ and ‘deserves better’ than others, that’s why they
succeed (as seen on an anthropological research I developed for a sports brand
about the relationship between people and sports a couple years ago, so I
discovered a ‘sports consumer clusters’ with the characteristics above), so,
the same image, or other kind of stimulus, can generate different perceptions and then interpretations
about an image or ad campaign if we don’t acknowledge the ‘cosmology’ of
social, behavioral, historical and cultural influences on the consumers
perceptions, reactions and behavior.

Also, if the sample is not really divided according to the
consumers clustering segmentations (like lifestyle, product use background,
life’s phase, what demographic divisions only are not capable of build for
modern markets), so the perception and reaction an graduated USA young consumer
will have about Nike brand exposure will be completely different of the
reaction an Rwanda teenager will have about it. The point is that perception,
according to neuroscience theory is created not only by inner emotional
conditions, but also by cultural and historical repertoire that ‘formats’
perceptions and generates reactions.

Nilsen Neurofocus, the Nielsen subsidiary that combines EEG
readings of brain activity with insights from other branches of the audience
measurement, tested the response to online advertising on Millenials, pointed
the influence of digital media on ‘re-shaping’ teenagers brains, but also
pointed to other sociological factors that marketers should be aware of. For
example, like all young people, Millennials rely more heavily on each other for
validation of their brand and product choices. It found that 68 percent won’t
make a major decision without running it through their network first, and 85
percent said that user-generated content had some influence on what they
purchased, especially larger purchases, showing how sociological influences
also contribute, in the end, for their consumer choice and behavior, and that for an research accurate result, multidisciplinarity is a necessary methodological strategy .

I really believe that the adequate use of cognitive
neuroscience articulated with other disciplines can really enhance the
possibilities of consumer research to develop products and strategies. But, as
other sciences use for the marketing, it has to be used seriously and focused.
I had an opportunity of using it in study of women in the XXI century for a
cosmetic brand associated with anthropology and semiotics, and the results were
great, a wonderful field of human behavior study which now we can associate
with other scientific tools to create business success.